Interruption to scheduled programming this week folks. Today and tomorrow I'll be sharing swatches of a collection I have been super excited about ever since it was first hinted at - the Mckfresh Nail Attire Planeteers collection, based on my all-time favourite childhood cartoon, Captain Planet! Go ahead and (re)familiarise yourself below - the all important theme song starts a minute in.

Mckfresh have come up with a totally in your face, mega colourful glitter packed collection which has had me in fits since I got my happy little hands on them! I was lucky enough to get them a little bit early with my mega parcel of winnings from the Mckfresh 1 year Anniversary competition I won. Thanks Kate!

The Planeteers collection will be available from 8pm Tuesday July 1st in the Mckfresh Etsy store.

The Power is Yours, based on the one and only Captain Planet is a gorgeous blue with flecks of red, gold and green. I'm just gonna say straight up so I don't get repetitive - all the polishes in this post I applied three thin coats, no dabbing or mucking around. I'd say these are jellies, but the opacity comes from the glitter coverage. This is alllll glitter, baby.

The colours in The Power is Yours are the colours of Captain Planet himself, he of blue skin, green mullet and red uniform. I think there's some flakie business going on in here too, but I can't be 100% sure as I swatched this one at night. Regardless, it's a winner.

Wind is the polish I was both most excited AND most apprehensive about. Everyone knows yellow = trouble, but given the amount of glitter it was barely a problem. My little nubbins don't have much free edge at the moment though so I can't say 3 coats will be perfect for everyone, but it was definitely enough for me. I couldn't even identify any sheerness until my hand entered the lightbox.

Linka, the Planeteer with the power of Wind, is a raging Russian babe who is smart and fierce. Oh, she's also a tech genius. How many other girls in early 90's cartoons were that cool?

Here we have Heart, the deceptively beautiful red. Now I'm mostly not so hot on washed out reds, but once I started top coating this I noticed a hidden shimmer start presenting itself. Between the fiery red glitters that flash a golden orange and sheer red jelly base some force of magic created a beautiful blue shimmer. Wowzers.

Heart is the power of the sweet and gentle Ma-Ti, the boy who can telepathically communicate with both humans and animals. Ma-Ti is the figurative heart of the Planeteers, offering instinct and compassion where the others rely on their more physical powers. Oh, did I mention he has a monkey? So jealous.

Last up for the day is Peace & Harmony - the softest polish of the collection. I was really surprised at how much of a stand out this is among all the bright in your face colours. The lilac glitter is generously sprinkled with some pastel blue and a whole lot of iridescent magic. It's ethereal and dreamy, like no other polish I own.

Peace & Harmony is based on Gaia, the Spirit of Earth (apparently voiced by Whoopi Goldberg! I never knew this!) Gaia was the one who assembled the Planeteers and set them on their path of saving the environment and therefore the world.

So there's half the collection! Are you swooning? Are you head over heels yet or do you want more colour? Either way I'll be back with the rest of the collection on Wednesday!

Oh you guys, so much life has been happening. I only actually did these late last night, and then wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and cuddle my dog. Winter is here!

So this is a nice and quick one to wrap up Junes colours. In theory, a great combo. On most other participants it's been excellent but I was just foiled by my lack of coral options. But hey, it gave me more reason to use the polish that sold me on coral tones in the first place - Gloss n Sparkle Passion Pop. I think it just works well with my skin tone and encouraged me to branch out a little more into orange territory.

Today is a little more freeform than the last few weeks, to which I breathe a large sigh of relief. Taking on the jagged shattered glass pattern from the cover of HEALTH's self titled debut was a much happier task than say, the meticulous detail of tiny satellite dishes of In Casino Out or last weeks Refused striping tape frenzy.

I'm a big fan of this look - sharp messy shapes in a basic bright is something I'll always be drawn to. The base for this is one of the best blues I own - Revlon Colorstay Coastal Surf, a smooth creamy 2 coater. I love the whole Colorstay range - I find some of the big makeup brands miss more often than they hit with polish, but the formula of every colour I own in the Colorstay range is just spot on. The white is trusty old Ulta3 Lily White with it all topped off with a coat of Peita's Polish Quick! Gloss Me Up!

Now, HEALTH. What an album. Coming in at less than 30 minutes and filled with pounding tribal drums, squealing electronica and dreamlike vocals, it's not like much else you'll hear. It's methodical despite the frenzied sounds. The infrequent vocals lets the music just be.

The sound is probably best described as "futuristic-caveman", pulling influences from absolutely everywhere - African drum beats here, post-rock drones there, and an overall art-punk aesthetic. It's a thrilling and complex listen, best turned up really stupidly loud.

Tuesdays come around so fast when you've dedicated yourself to something on Monday and Tuesday! I don't know how others keep up with multiple challenges at once. Don't get me wrong, I change my nails as often as most people change their underwear, but by the end of the week my busted shoulder hates me for it.

Anyway, I'm feeling like my choice of coral is a bit borderline today. It's leaning much redder in the picture than it does on my nails I swear!

I keep wanting to say I've done something simple here but I know some people would disagree given the water marbling. It's still a simple marble though, and I find slathering my fingers up to the knuckle in a good thick layer of cuticle balm makes cleanup heavenly - not to mention the good it's doing for me at the same time.

The turquoise tips are just freehanded on with a striper brush - when there's marbling to be done ain't nobody got time to be taping up fingers!

I know pretty much nobody cares about nails today because Game of freaking Thrones, but here we are anyway. I'll be honest, I can't think of much else myself so this will be brief.

This week it's a colour blocked recreation of the definitive post-hardcore album, Refused's The Shape of Punk To Come. Naturally as a fan of colour blocking and anything even barely geometric, I was looking forward to giving this a go.

Source: www.epitaph.com

While I love the look overall, I'm a bit annoyed with how my camera suddenly freaked out at the glossy top coat and just wouldn't take a nice sharp photo. It would focus on everything but my nails. Harrumphh.

I love sitting down at a well stocked (aka messy) polish table and letting an idea happen. No pre-determined theme, no desperate need to swatch a new polish, just a desire to do something pretty to my nails.

Late last night I sat down at my polish table and felt like something monochromatic. I also spied Sayuri Nail Lacquer'sThe Cat's Meow sitting in my untried basket. I ended up with this:

I started with the black to white gradient, which is really quite difficult to pull off. Probably why I covered it with pretty glitter ;) The gradient was done with trusty old Ulta3 Black Satin and Lily White.

The most difficult part of a black/white gradient is getting the colours to blend -I'd find that giving it a quick mix with a toothpick wasn't quite enough, and had to really work the colours together to get a good grey before applying.

After testing on my thumb I found the best way to go was to quickly stroke some black polish across the tips of my white base, then apply the gradient with a sponge focusing on the grey/white section. It still wasn't worthy of display all alone.

I then lightly dabbed two coats of The Cat's Meow on top, and finished off with a good layer of HK Girl top coat. I love how the black glitters are prominent over the white and the translucent pastels pop over the black.

I wasn't sure if I loved how it all looked together immediately but after having it on for a little while I really like how unique it is. I mostly love how the gradient has a bit of a frostbite look to it - very edgy.

I love how dreamy this looks in the bottle! I wasn't sure if the base was totally clear or not before I opened it because of the pastels glitters. To my late-on-Saturday-night eyes I could have sworn it was a milky crelly but they totally deceived me. Black and pastel is such a great combination and having the beautiful sheer hexes in pink, lavender, mint and blue is just perfection.

I picked up this polish in Sayuri's end of year sale which is running until June 30th - some polish is as cheap as $4.95, including one of my all-time favourites Galaxy Magic!

Welcome to another Tri Polish Tuesday! June we're using Nude, Coral and Turquoise which is proving to be something of a challenge due to my limited range of coral polish.

I haven't done a true tape mani in a while so I went for a simple art deco inspired look.

Not the most original look but it's something I should work with more often. Tape manis aren't as cumbersome as I always seem to think the are, especially with a good quick dry top coat on your side. I'm so happy to have something that looks this good after the shambles of yesterdays efforts!

Such dreams I had of recreating the beautiful artwork of this album. I should have gone with something easier this week, because I have destroyed something beautiful. Lucky for polish remover.

Ignoring my obvious difficulty with getting any kind of detail looking remotely decent, I stupidly used my horrible matte topcoat again. Look at all those white spots!!! It looks like I just scratched a dandruff laden head. Even more frustrating is there are two white spots covering some of the detail work making it look even worse than it did to begin with. Booo-urns!

Fortunately some things went right today - it was a public holiday so there was lots of Orange is the New Black binge-watching. I even purchased a new matte top coat!

Please don't let my nail art stop you from listening to Purity Ring. Shrines is one of the most stunning albums I've heard in the past few years. The songs are poetic and ethereal, creating a sense of being swallowed by a comforting darkness. My husband wrote about one of the album tracks a little while ago, and his words are almost as beautiful as the music itself - check it out here

It's the beginning of a new month and I thought maybe I should try a no-buy June. HA! Who am I kidding, no-buy?? Truly, the thought crossed my mind. I decided I would give my brain some credit for the idea and commit to a 'low-buy' June. My credit card will thank me for it.

My resolve to reduce my spending on polish was broken within mere hours of making the decision. My excuse this time? Free shipping from Petal Polish, and a new collection featuring a gorgeous yellow that I *had* to have. What can I say, I'm weak.

This will be a little more pic-heavy than my normal posts - all three I purchased were so beautiful I'm breaking from my usual one picture laziness! I have one polish from the new Aspley Collection, and two more from the previous range.

Hibiscus, from The Aspley Collection, is a stunning fiery golden yellow with a beautiful iridescent orange shimmer. This was the polish I had to have. Any nail polish fanatic knows how difficult it is to find a yellow that reaches opacity without a white base - so how does Hibiscus fare?

I was excited to find that after two thin coats I had only a few minor patches and knew a third would make it rock solid. Ding-ding-ding we have a winner! My photos show three coats with one coat of Pretty Serious Crystal Coat. This is an absolute must-have yellow for me.

Irishits me right in my weak spot. I swooned over the royal purple jelly in the bottle and on the nail it is rich and wonderful. My eyes just wanted to caress its beauty for the rest of time. The white and yellow hexes are abundant, paired with a dash of holographic shine.

Due to the generous amounts of glitter this requires a little extra care with application but it's totally worth it. A little dabbing, a little poke here and there and voila, perfection. Iris is a thirsty little petal, so I used one coat of Essence Gel Look Top Coat and one of Dead Set Babes Super Glossy! Glitter Topcoat for that smooth glassy finish that may induce involuntary moans of ecstasy upon viewing.

Periwinkle is a favourite colour of mine so this one jumped in my cart without a second thought. I found this polish to be a little sheer, though the tiny violet flakes do a lot to distract from that. The colour itself is impossible to capture because it's impossible to accurately identify. More chameleon than multichrome, it's about 7 different shades of blue and purple depending on the light and angle. I saw some definite potential to double down on the pretty with some black undies.

Bam! No longer periwinkle, it takes on rich sapphire hues over black undies. It positively comes to life with the violet flakes shimmering like nobodies business.

Tilt your hand a few degrees and the flakies disguise any trace of blue and turn the whole nail a rich violet. Though I wasn't sold on Periwinkle at first, I'm falling more and more in love with how versatile the colour is. Worn alone it's understated and feminine, then with a black base it reveals a hidden identity and amps up the vamp. For my swatches I wore three coats alone, then two coats over black. Both times topped with Pretty Serious Crystal Coat.
Not only am I seriously impressed with the polishes shown here, I'm astounded by the service! I placed my order on a Monday night, and came home Tuesday to find the parcel had been hand delivered to my front door. Now I don't believe this is a regular service Christine offers (I'm sure flights around the country are just a scratch more expensive than postage) but I'm sure it's at least an indication that all these polishes are made with a lot of love and care.

Have you checked out Petal Polish on Etsy yet? Do it, the link is right there!

It's a new month, so new colours for Tri Polish Tuesday! How did my excitement over the potentially excellent combination of Nude, Coral and Turquoise turn into such a disappointing pile of bleh?

I don't know, but it did. I had such a great picture of what I would do in my head... nude nails with alternating turquoise and french tips. Simple, right? Nope. No tip guides, and my severe inability to estimate the length of my free edge left me with a big sloppy mess.

I then tried stamping but hadn't waited long enough for my base to dry. I tried candy stripes but only had a short striper which made messy lines.

So I went with some trusty old freehand shapes. Can't go wrong with those!

Except I went for the matte top coat. Bad Jae! Why bad me? Because my matte top coat seems to be filled with invisible lumps that dry white (see pointer and pinkie). It made my stunning turquoise polish too pastel blue, and has terrible protection from wear - it looks like I've had this on for days, but this photo was taken after less than 24 hours.

Fortunately there are many others who have done better than me this week, so go have a look!

Happy Monday pals, welcome to the first of what I hope will become a regular Monday feature here - Music Monday!

We all know Mondays stink, so I figured if I can rock nails featuring artwork from my favourite albums to start the week it might make that first day back at work just a little easier. Also gives me a sneaky opportunity to talk about some of my favourite music while still having fancy nails - win!

This week - In/Casino/Out from At The Drive In

As you can probably tell, I'm going into this with the full intention to really challenge myself. I am by no means an accomplished nail artist - I can do the basics just fine but freehanding fine lines and detail is far beyond my current capabilities. That said, I think I've done fairly well. For comparison:

Source: wikipedia.org

The album itself is probably best described as post-everything - it's post-punk, post-grunge and post-hardcore. It's my favourite At The Drive In Album by a hair. Their breakthrough Relationship of Command is phenomenal, but In/Casino/Out has some of my favourite ATDI songs (Napoleon Solo, Pickpocket and Lopsided in case you were wondering) and it's a little bit rougher around the edges than Relationship of Command. It's the kind of album you have to hear if you're even vaguely interested in non-mainstream rock.